Reusing Slides with Slide Library

Two methods can be used to add slides to your library: Use PowerPoint to
upload slides to the SharePoint site, and use the SharePoint site to grab
slides from a PowerPoint presentation.

Publishing From PowerPoint

First, PowerPoint has the capability to publish slides to a SharePoint
server, assuming that you know the URL of the site.To do this, first open
the presentation that contains the slides you want to upload and make sure
that the presentation is saved (otherwise, PowerPoint notifies you that
you need to do so).Then click the Office button, select the arrow next to
Publish, and then select Publish Slides (see Figure 9.7).

Figure 9.7: The Publish Slides option from the Office
button allows you to upload Slides from your presentation to a SharePoint
site.

Now you will notice a dialog that looks like the one shown in Figure 9.8
that presents you with all the slides in this presentation. Click the check
boxes next to slides to select them or use the Select All button. If you
click on the File Name or Description fields, you can edit them; that information
will be published along with the slide. Select Show Only Selected Slides
if you have many slides and do not care about the ones you are not going
to publish.This will give you a better idea of what content is going to
end up on your site.

Figure 9.8: The dialog to Publish Slides lets you
customize pieces of the slide that will end up on the SharePoint site.
Click on the fields under File Name and Description in order to modify
that information for a specific slide.

Make sure that only the slides you want to upload are checked and then
select Publish. Notice that the dialog has gone away.You might be puzzled
at first if you already have your SharePoint site open in a web browser
because the site does not automatically refresh and it might look like nothing
has happened. Press F5 to refresh your browser to see the changes.

Adding Slides From Sharepoint

Now we will show you how to grab slides from the SharePoint site and add
them to the library. From the SharePoint site, select Upload and click on
Publish Slides (see Figure 9.9).

Figure 9.9: Click the Upload button on the SharePoint
site to insert new slides into the library

Caution: If the Windows Explorer interface is used
to access the library, it might corrupt the slide library. This seems
to be a bug in the current version that might be fixed, but be warned.

If it isn’t already open, PowerPoint launches and brings
up the Open File dialog. Find a presentation you want to use slides
from and select it.You are presented with the same dialog as shown
back in Figure 9.7 that shows all the slides in the presentation
and lets you customize them before uploading them to the site.

Now continue the previous steps to complete the uploading process,
and refresh your SharePoint site to see the new slides in action.
(Refresh the browser using F5 or the Refresh button.)

Note: We don’t actually mean action
here because the preview of the slide in the library does not
preview any animations or transitions.

Using The Slide Library

Now that you have a populated library
of excellent slides you want to reuse,we can show you how to take
advantage of this great resource and save yourself and your team
some time. From the main Slide Library page, you will notice that
the list of slides has corresponding check boxes next to them.
Select the ones you want to include in a presentation, and then
click Copy Slide to Presentation (see Figure
9.10).

Figure 9.10:
Choose slides to copy.

PowerPoint will launch if it hasn’t already, and the Copy
Slides to PowerPoint dialog appears. From this dialog, you can
select the destination for the slides—either an open presentation
or a new presentation— and also a couple of options.

The first option has to do with the design theme that the slides
have after they are incorporated into the new presentation; check
the Keep the Source Presentation Format box if you want the slides
to look as they did when they were created, or leave it unchecked
to match the slide’s content with the rest of the slides
in the presentation.

The next check box,Tell Me When This Slide
Changes, is sort of like data binding, or, in other words, the
slide on the server will notify this presentation that it has changed
if somebody makes modifications to it.That way, you can ensure
that you always have the latest copy of this slide and are notified
to update it when it changes on the SharePoint server.

Tell Me When This Slide Changes

If this check box is selected when importing a slide from a slide library,
you will notice an icon on the thumbnail of this slide in the Thumbnail pane
(see Figure 9.11).

Figure 9.11: The thumbnail of slides that can be
synchronized with the SharePoint site contains a small icon that
looks like two arrows in sync.

Click on this icon and look at the four options:

Check This Slide for Changes

Check All Slides for Changes

Stop Checking This Slide for Changes

Stop Checking All Slides for Changes

When the Check This Slide for Changes option is selected, you are presented
with the Confirm Slide Update dialog shown in Figure 9.12.

Figure
9.12: Synchronizing a slide means comparing the version on the
SharePoint site with the one you have in your presentation and deciding
whether you want to replace or append the version on the site with the
one in your presentation.

This shows you a preview of the two slides and lets you decide whether you
want to replace the slide in your presentation with the one on the SharePoint
site or whether you want to just append the modified slide into your presentation
and use it that way.

If the two slides are exactly the same, a dialog tells you that there are
no updates at this time.